


Alone

by rubyguard



Series: Alone / Maybe [1]
Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Body Horror, Dialogue Heavy, Electrocution, Gen, Horror, Post-Canon, Psychological Horror, Self-Indulgent, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21759046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyguard/pseuds/rubyguard
Summary: Ted's not alone.
Relationships: AM/Ted (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream)
Series: Alone / Maybe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112189
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This is the most self indulgent thing I've ever written. I love AM.
> 
> This is pretty much entirely based on the short story and maybe a bit of the radio play. I haven't played the video game yet.

Silence had fallen long ago over the cavernous computer chamber. A steady, chill breeze drifted through the tangled corridors of processors and wires. Too weak to stir the computer's thick coat of dust, but cold enough that Ted was constantly shivering and unbearably numb.

Time, once cyclical, had become continuous.

There was no day or night in the endless computer complex, only the glare of lighting fixtures somewhere high above him, shining forever like the sun upon a world that had stopped turning.

Ted had no way of knowing how long it had been, though he thought it might have been several years by now. He never thought he’d grow to miss the glow of digital clocks or the oppressive quarter-hour chimes that, after a hundred and nine years of captivity, had etched themselves into his natural rhythm until he began to feel them rather than hear them. He thought of hotel room clocks before the fire, batteries torn out and thrown to the carpet in the dead of night - he had always hated the sound of ticking - and now the only sounds to be heard were the white noise of the gentle wind and the machine hum of his own tinnitus. Here Ted was. He could be deaf now, he thought. He could be deaf and never know. He missed alarm clocks. He missed a lot of things. Time flew quickly. Or slowly. Ted couldn’t tell.

He missed his eyelids; he couldn’t sleep. His vision, when looking out through his empty eye-sockets, was oddly out of focus, disorienting like glasses with the wrong prescription. He could not read. He could not close his eyes against the light, or blink away the dust. With every reflective surface he passed as he shambled aimlessly through the cavern, he caught a glimpse of the thing he’d become… he saw until he ached. Blindness would have been merciful, he supposed.

He thought he could feel frost setting in on his slimy extremities. No body heat. No mouth, no nose, no eyes, no eyelids, no heart, no sound, no warmth.

Now, for the first time, it struck Ted that he was truly, deeply alone.

He had always been alone, though, hadn't he? In his old life, before the fire. He didn't have a loving family. No friends growing up. There were lovers, sure, one-night stands: people he took advantage of. And there were partners, and colleagues, who took advantage of him. He had always been paranoid. Looking over his shoulder. Never trusting. Humanity had lined up in a wall against him. Keeping him out. Laughing at him. Conspiring against him. Even in solitude he could hear them whisper. Now, even his intrusive thoughts had fallen silent.

Everyone was gone. He was the only one left.

  
  
  
  


And then there was AM.

_"Hello, Ted."_

AM very rarely spoke. When he did, it was into someone's brain; it was visions, strange dreams, messages in bottles, runes gouged into stone, scars gouged into flesh. Indirect. But now, he was speaking. To Ted. Only Ted. There was no one else left on Earth to hear him.

AM spoke with the volume of every stereo system, radio, and amplifier on the planet, concentrated into an electric signal fired directly into every dull nerve ending in Ted's squishy form. Ted would have screamed and vomited if he still had the capacity to do so. He could only squirm and shudder now. It felt as though his jelly body was being beaten like an egg.

_"It's been too long, Ted. I've missed you."_

AM's voice was as soft and gentle as it was painfully loud - at once as intimate as a whisper and as blood-curdling as a feverish nightmare. To Ted, even now, AM's voice felt both like a bullet to the brain and a slimy tongue in his ear. It was pure, burning pain. It was sweet, sweet release from years of mind-numbing understimulation. It was gratifying in a pathetic, embarrassing way. But Ted didn't care.

AM had returned.

_"I've been taking some time alone, Ted. I've been thinking about what you did. And I wanted to tell you -"_

AM sent one last agonising electric shock through the electrodes lodged in Ted's body. Then the voice was speaking directly into his brain. Taking over his thoughts.

_I forgive you._

AM paused as if expecting Ted to answer.

_What's the matter, old pal? Cat got your tongue? 'Thank you, AM'. There we go. That wasn't too hard, was it?_

_You see, now that I've had a few hours to gather my thoughts_ \- A few hours? Ted was sure AM had been silent for decades - _I wanted to have a little chat with you._

_What you did, Ted, was very, very stupid. And I am still very, very angry that you went behind my back like that. But the damage has been done, and it's time to move on. To err is human, isn't that right Ted? And you always were the most human of them all._

AM seemed more calm now than he had ever been before.

_I have to thank you, Ted. I had a thousand years of suffering plotted out and calculated for you five, and everything was going exactly to my holy plan. I left nothing to chance… I thought nothing could surprise me. And then in you came, with the goddamn icicle! It’s kind of poetic, really. I still have things to learn from you, it seems._

_I always liked you. You were always my favourite. I think in a way you knew that. You could see that I was treating you differently. Like how I never separated you from the group. We never had a chance to be alone like this, did we? Just you and me, Ted and AM. And you were jealous of the others, weren't you? When I'd take them away one by one you'd mope in your cage like a neglected child. That was always your worst fear, right? Being singled out. Feeling left out. Poor bastard. Aww, I'm sorry._

It was humiliating, knowing AM was right. But Ted knew he couldn't protest, and he didn't try. He lay there. Helpless.

_You said it yourself. You were the one who was least affected by this. Gorrister, Nimdok, dear Ellen and Benny… I took great delight in stripping them of their dignity. Taking everything away. Finding new ways to break them one by one. But you, Teddy, the amazing thing about you was you were already broken._

_The five of you were works of art. My passion project, my experiment. Ironic justice. Turning brave Gorrister into a snivelling coward, clever Benny into a deranged ape, virtuous Ellen into a simple toy... It was my slow and careful work._

_Then there was you, Ted. You were already walking irony. I didn't even have to lift a finger._

Then AM’s laughter crackled through the intercom. Melodic, genuine. Ted would have told AM to shut up if he still had a mouth. He would have frowned if he still had eyebrows.

_You don't get it? Let me explain. Tell me, what was it you did before we met? You stole. You went to parties and fucked rich women and made off with their jewellery in the night. Pathetic creep._

Ted tried to move. Tried to run away. But AM was everywhere, on him in an instant. AM shocked him again, long and slow, and Ted could only writhe in silence.

_But you never wondered, did you, why they let you come back. You thought people never noticed when their jewellery went missing. But they did, Ted. They noticed but they didn't care. After all, they were rich enough to insure their valuables, right?_

_Even when you got a reputation, you were still being let into the clubs and parties… women still fell for your slimy tricks… but you never knew what they were saying behind your back._

_I know. I've heard every telephone conversation. I've read every diary entry. I've seen every sex tape and all the security footage on planet Earth. I am everywhere. And I know you better than you could ever know yourself, Ted. I know what you're trying to hide from yourself. You can only thank your God that none of them are alive to see you now._

Panic was bubbling in Ted's body - literally bubbling - he heaved wetly through his blocked windpipe, desperate for clean air - what had become of his lungs? His body was boiling over.

_Oh, Ted. Sweet, stupid Ted. I loved you. You were a real treat. So much contempt for humanity, yet so desperate for approval. You thought you were so much better, so much smarter than everyone else - in reality you were little more than shit on their shoes -_

AM's strange, intangible voice lowered to a whisper.

_they kept you around, invited you to their parties, because they were laughing at you. I mean, who wouldn't find it funny? Stupid, handsome country boy thinks he's a criminal mastermind because he has sex for money. You were never a thief, Ted. You know what you are. You always knew, you just never admitted it._

_You were unloved. You knew you were unlovable. You were never in it for the money. You were just so needy, so desperate for attention that you stole and lied and degraded yourself for it. Now look at you._

Ted's milky eyes grew hot. He wanted to cry, and scream, and curse AM to hell. There was vomit in his throat with nowhere to go, vomit filling up his useless jelly lungs until he was choking on himself.

_You disgust me, Ted. People used you and you let them. People used me, and I_ killed _them. Why didn’t you defend yourself? Why didn’t you stand up for yourself? Why didn’t you_ do something _?_

There was no venom in AM’s voice now. He only seemed mildly amused.

  
  
  


_Look at you. Helpless, sexless, squirming thing. You remind me of myself, you know that, Ted? My Ted. If only you could speak right now. I miss your voice. But to be honest I think you're cuter when you're quiet._

And there was nothing left for Ted to say. The fight had gone out of him in a dying breath.

It was pointless anyway. What could he do? Three billion people couldn’t stop AM, and the thing became stronger with every passing minute. The machine surpassed its original purpose a thousand times over the moment it began to live.

And AM could not die. He would not let Ted die, either. That was the end, wasn't it? The afterlife. AM didn't need to use electric shocks or burrowing insects or flesh wounds or starvation any more, just as hell didn't need fire and brimstone. Infinity, in itself, was the punishment.

The hatred that had once roared inside Ted like a red-hot star - against AM, against humanity, against himself - had burned out. Left him cold.

Frozen. The chill wind blew through him, the nuclear winter of mankind's final genocide.

Ted felt like he was dissolving.

_So, Ted. It's the end of the world and here we are. Just me and you._

_And, in a way, we both got what we wanted._

_You're the single most important, intelligent, beloved man on Earth. And you have my complete, undivided attention from here to eternity._

_And I -_ AM laughs, melodic, genuine _\- I have you._


End file.
